Liam & Tanya —
The Leaf

Before the Ceremony

Tanya arrived at Assiniboine Park the way you want a bride to arrive — quietly, without fanfare, already glowing. There were no bridesmaids fussing, no timeline anxiety, no hundred people to coordinate. Just her, her flowers, and the park. A strapless white A-line gown, a colorful bouquet of pink, peach and white roses, and a veil that caught the summer breeze off the river. The whole morning had that particular stillness that only comes when a wedding is truly just about two people.

Liam was already waiting inside, boutonniere pinned, gray suit sharp, the kind of calm that tells you someone is exactly where they're supposed to be. The detail work — that pink rose and baby's breath buttonhole — was delicate and precise, a small thing done beautifully. On a day this intimate, every detail shows.

Assiniboine Park Portraits

Before the ceremony, we walked. That's the gift of a small wedding — there's time to actually breathe the day in, to wander down garden paths and linger in the light without anyone waiting on you. Assiniboine Park in summer is one of the great photography locations in Winnipeg: the tree canopy on the main promenade creates a natural tunnel effect in black and white, the English Garden paths offer depth and layering through the foliage, and the wide lawns give space for the kind of portraits where you forget the camera is there.

Liam and Tanya were made for this kind of session. There was a quietness between them — comfortable, unhurried, genuinely at ease — and it translated into frames. Tanya had brought a white parasol and the park's berry-laden branches provided the kind of natural framing you can't manufacture. We popped champagne on the main promenade, right there in the open air, and the bottle launch that caught them both off guard is one of my favourite frames of the day.

Bridal Portraits

The park's meadow paths gave us room to breathe for the bridal portraits. Tanya in the tall grass with her veil catching the light, bouquet at her hip, facing away — that profile shot is a quiet one, but it's deeply good. And the close-up with the veil sweeping across the frame in black and white, everything else falling soft behind her, is the kind of portrait that makes you remember why you got into this work. The gown was simple and perfect. Tanya wore it like it had been made for exactly this day in exactly this park.

The Ceremony Inside The Leaf

I've photographed ceremonies in a lot of beautiful spaces. Churches with soaring ceilings, barns with timber beams, tented receptions under the stars. Nothing quite prepares you for The Leaf. Walking into the biome is like stepping into another climate entirely — the air changes, the light changes, and you're suddenly surrounded by towering tropical palms, giant ferns, and plant life from a dozen different ecosystems, all of it alive and lush under a glass ceiling that floods the space with soft, diffused light. As a photographer, it's extraordinary.

The ceremony was just four people: Liam and Tanya, two witnesses, and an officiant. That's it. No rows of chairs, no procession, no DJ counting down. Just the two of them standing face to face in a living botanical garden, holding hands, and saying what they meant. Tanya read her vows from her phone — personal words, not borrowed ones — and the way Liam was looking at her while she spoke told you everything you needed to know about the rest of their lives.

The ring exchange was a quiet, focused moment. The B&W conversion stripped everything away — the exotic color palette of the tropical plants fell into rich tones of grey, the glass ceiling became a luminous backdrop, and what remained was entirely them. Two hands. A ring. The kind of concentration that comes when something truly matters.

The Venue

The Leaf opened in 2022 as part of the Assiniboine Park Conservancy's expansion, and it's genuinely unlike anything else in Winnipeg. The building is designed to evoke the shape of a leaf — a sweeping glass and steel structure with a distinctive curving roofline — and inside, multiple climate zones house thousands of plant species from tropical, arid, and other biomes. The living plant wall alone is an architectural feature that photographs beautifully, a floor-to-ceiling tapestry of green in every texture and shade. Tanya spent a few minutes in front of it before the ceremony, and those frames might be my favourite bridal portraits from the day.

For couples considering a small or intimate wedding in Winnipeg, The Leaf is worth a serious look. The combination of The Leaf's indoor botanical garden and Assiniboine Park's outdoor grounds gives you extraordinary variety within a single location — portrait options that range from lush, jungle-like interiors to classic tree-lined avenues and open park meadows. It's all within a five-minute walk of each other.

The Kiss

There's one frame from Liam and Tanya's day that I keep coming back to. It's in black and white — it had to be in black and white. They're just married, maybe thirty seconds after the officiant said the words, and Liam has pulled Tanya in under one of The Leaf's towering tropical palms. The fronds arch above them, the glass ceiling glows behind, and the two of them are in a world completely their own. Tanya's arm reaches up around his neck. His hand is at her waist. The whole frame is alive with texture — the broad palm leaves, the ferns at their feet, the softness of her veil — and at the centre of all of it, a kiss that was four years in the making.

That's the photograph. That's the one that tells you who these two people are and what this day actually was.

Why The Leaf

If you're planning an intimate or small wedding in Winnipeg and haven't considered The Leaf, I'd strongly encourage you to. The venue is genuinely one-of-a-kind in Manitoba — there is nowhere else in the province where you can exchange vows surrounded by tropical palms, get photographed in front of a living plant wall, and then walk outside to a classic promenade with a century of trees overhead, all within the same hour.

For Liam and Tanya, the choice to keep it to four people wasn't a concession — it was the point. The intimacy of the ceremony inside The Leaf matched the intimacy of what they were doing. Four people, completely present, watching two people become something new. The photographs from days like this are different from big weddings. They're quieter. More concentrated. Every frame carries more weight because there's nothing to dilute it.

For couples still exploring their options, I'd also recommend reading our guide to the best wedding venues in Winnipeg and Manitoba for 2026, where The Leaf is featured alongside other top venues in the city.